Review: Uncharted 4

26 May 2016

By Chris Kemp

Right, full disclosure up front – I’ve never played an Uncharted game. As a recent inductee into the console owner’s club, I was coming into this with a fresh perspective and without nostalgic attachment.

Still, I know Naughty Dog’s pedigree (huehue) and I know this is one of Sony’s flagship franchises. So could this latest entry help me hop aboard the hype train, or would it leave me wondering what all the fuss is about?

Having no prior knowledge of the story covered in the previous three games didn’t seem to hinder me at all in the fourth instalment. The game starts with an out-of-context action set piece before taking you back to Nathan Drake’s childhood to flesh out his relationship with his brother. It’s a jarring juxtaposition of pace – something that I found continues throughout the game. One moment you’ll be serenely swinging from trees and climbing up cliff faces taking in the view just long enough to forget why you’re there, before stumbling into a heavily fortified outpost full of baddies trying to ventilate you with machine guns.

The prologue is done very well, however, emotionally destroying me before flashing “Naughty Dog Presents” on the screen and reminding me that this is only the beginning of an epic adventure. As a fan of story-driven gameplay, I was intrigued by the narrative and settled in for a compelling, emotional plot.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get it. The bulk of the story revolves around finding an infamous pirate’s treasure, but that treasure quickly feels like an overlong MacGuffin designed to move you from one gorgeous environment to the next. It starts to boil down to a repeating cycle of “nope, no treasure here, but look, another clue!”

In spite of the tepid story, Naughty Dog have gone to great lengths to make the characters feel real, and to some extent they succeed. Characters tease each other, have conversations in car rides and laugh at inside jokes. Over time, I felt the story became more focused on the relationship between them than the actual plot.

Unfortunately, they also feel insincere, overly cheerful and superficial – their reactions often don’t fit with the context. It seems Naughty Dog was trying to get away from the more sombre feel of The Last of Us by turning the experience into a swashbuckling adventure instead, but they sacrifice emotional depth as a consequence.

There’s an issue of consistency here, too. On one hand the developers want me to feel that epic adventure, but on the other hand they make me sit through a torturous thirty minutes of gameplay where I discuss the weather with my wife and shoot Nerf guns in the attic. The narrative seems caught between trying to convey an emotional story and serve up a suspension-of-disbelief, carefree adventure, and ends up doing both poorly.

Nevertheless, as far as MacGuffins go, buried treasure is a compelling one, and there was enough there to keep me interested until the end. This is helped by the fact that things get significantly more exciting in the final act as the story draws closer to its conclusion. There’s also a layer of history added which I found engaging, particularly towards the end as you begin to uncover the grim fate of the wealthy pirate you’ve been tracking.

Gameplay is similarly samey – swing on things, climb on things and slide down things, with puzzles and gunfights strewn in between. It helps that while you’re doing all this swinging around you’ll be goggling at what are probably the most impressive visuals I’ve seen in a console game. The environments are gorgeous, and Uncharted 4 lets you enjoy them.

Unfortunately, in spite of the vast, seemingly open areas, the game is incredibly linear. You’re funnelled from one place to the next with zero room for exploration or side quests of any kind. As pretty as it all looks, you can only interact with very specific parts of it.

There are various puzzles along the way, but they’re mostly too easy to make them all that engaging. This isn’t a brag, but more an observation – it seems that the developers were so scared of anyone getting frustrated that they made sure you’d never get stuck. It feels like my hand was being held the entire time, often when I really didn’t want it to be. I got more and more frustrated with this as the game wore on, and by the end I wanted to scream every time one of the characters offered up some unsolicited advice.

You’ll reach a ledge that’s too high, and Nathan will helpfully chirp, “This is too high, we’ll need to find something to stand on”. After a minute of looking around another character will chime in with, “This box over here should work.” The game never really gives you a chance to solve anything for yourself, even with puzzles that are actual puzzles. After a minute or two of trying someone will helpfully offer their two cents.

One thing I did like was the “hint” option that popped up now and then if things were moving a little slowly – because it was an option that I could control, and I wish they’d stuck with this system throughout. Having someone ruin a puzzle, or even worse tell you something you were already going to do anyway, really takes the fun and sense of achievement out of the whole experience.

The same holds true for simple exploration. Everything that can be climbed is clearly marked, everything that can utilise one of your items (like your grappling hook) has an icon hovering over it. This, combined with the overly linear setup, makes the simple joy of navigating the environments feel like autopilot most of the time. Hell, Nathan even holds out his hand when you’re swinging to let you know you’ll reach a ledge if you let go. This isn’t to say going through the motions isn’t fun, I just would have appreciated the opportunity to do things for myself.

Combat, however, is surprisingly tough. This is of course provided you don’t use the lock-on aim feature, which is enabled by default and makes the game terrible. You have the option in most of the combat scenarios to utilise stealth or go in all guns blazing. The stealth is pretty poorly implemented, however – it mostly consists of crawling through long grass and trying not to get spotted. Even if you do get seen, enemies will first become alarmed but then calm down if you get to cover fast enough. As if they just imagined you snapping Johan’s neck in front of them.

You’re unlikely to be successful if you don’t use stealth at all, as usually the sheer number of enemies will overwhelm you if you don’t thin the herd first. The game utilises the cover-shooting mechanic, but your cover will get blown away, you’ll get flushed out with grenades and enemies will advance on your position – all of which makes it impossible to stay in one spot.

I found the controls in combat a little awkward, as frequently there would be too much space to cover while tucked up against a wall or crawling through the grass and invariably I’d be shot or spotted from an angle outside of my vision. Doing a barrel roll and taking cover behind the nearest thing is also the same button, so often I’d be trying to get the hell out of dodge and crouch uselessly behind a box instead. I played on a pretty low difficulty level and it was still reasonably challenging; I imagine at the highest difficulty the combat is brutal.

The bad guys are South African, which is as awesome as it’s always been. I love that we’re the villains in games now, and hearing such chestnuts as “lekker” and “boet” is always good for a chuckle. As the game progresses there are a few action set pieces which are quite fun, but some of them lost their lustre somewhat when I would make a horrible error by doing something like crashing into a tree, only to I still have time to reverse and keep going in what I thought was a life-or-death chase.

While this is first and foremost a campaign-centric game, I did try my hand at the multiplayer. I struggled to find games that weren’t sporting a high ping, but the experience was nevertheless fun enough for me to squeeze a little extra enjoyment out of the game. There’s nothing ground-breaking here, but a handful of maps, a class-based loadout system and a few unlockables should keep you interested for a while after finishing up the story mode.

Overall, it’s a fun, beautiful game. For me, it’s let down somewhat by a shallow story, less-than-optimal controls, linear exploration and combat, and excessive handholding. If you like this sort of game, you’re going to like this one too. It’ll be a fun 10-14 hour experience, but ultimately a forgettable one.

Plus:

Stunning visuals

Fun gameplay

Aggressive enemy AI

Minus:

Weak story

Stealth could be better

Overly linear

Too much handholding

80Uncharted 4 boasts fun gameplay and gorgeous graphics, but it’s let down by an inconsistent narrative and an overly linear experience.

Woah easy tiger, lol. I did just recently get a PS4, been a PC gamer all my life 🙂

Phil246

I don’t understand why someone would be allowed to review the last game of a 5 game series if he/she has not even played the others. Anyway, I definitely don’t agree on the “weak story” part. I thought the story was excellent, played it twice now and it’s actually very layered. I love how Naughty Dog made the pirates feel like real people. Avery, in my opinion, was the main antagonist. Good review, although I think that Chris might have enjoyed it more had he played the other games.

To play Devil’s Advocate, I think it can be good to get a fresh perspective on the franchise – helps to evaluate the game as its own entity rather than be influenced by a bias towards the IP.

I thought the story had promise at the beginning and I enjoyed the end, but I found everything in the middle to be going from place to place where the treasure wasn’t, without much going on.

Phil246

True true, I’m glad you enjoyed it and everyone has his own opinion. I guess what I was getting at was that I was more emotionally invested in this game having played the others. This series has been with me for 10 years, and you grow with these characters. Was just sad to say goodbye. I thought it was great, you though it was good, as far as I’m concerned it’s a win win for both of us. Cheers

Junior Mac Donald

I feel this game was amazing the whole traveling from place to place searching for clues is the formula of all Uncharted games its the same as a film such as Jurassic Park that film has a formula but hey when the next one comes out we back in the cinema as if we have no idea what will happen next

Kyle

Chris, im impressed, you stand against the lynch mob and piss on the franchise with aim and allure. I struggle to find HONEST reviews nowadays, its really easy for a fanboy of a game that has played since the first title to review a game they already think is good and give it 90%, if people believe you need to play all the other titles in order to enjoy this title and give it 100% is that REALLY the true markings of a good game, if in that case it is, they should state on the box ( PLAY THE OTHERS FIRST PLEASE! ). Its nice to have reviews of something with fresh eyes as its always the best review to read, its unbiased. Which is perfect.

Im curious though, as a person who has played the last of us but not uncharted can we expect the same sort of quality from uncharted?

I wanted to write a review that’s as honest as possible, which is why I didn’t read any other reviews when writing mine. I think it’s best to do it that way. I don’t really think not playing the other Uncharted games affected my view of the story – it’s a self-contained plot that works fine on its own.

I think Uncharted 4 is a GOOD game, it’s just not a GREAT game. Last of Us was something more special, and I’m not sure it can be too easily compared to this. If what you’re after is the emotional punch and truly compelling narrative of Last of Us, I don’t think you’ll find it here. This is more Indiana Jones than Schindler’s List. It is very pretty though, like TLoU.

It is fun to play though, and the story is interesting enough to keep you invested in the game to see how things turn out. I imagine for you it would be worth picking up when the price has come down a bit, if it seems like the type of game you’d be interested in.

Phil246

Would you enjoy The Godfather Part 2 as much if you haven’t seen the first one? I get what you’re saying Kyle, but I take it you liked The Last of Us? If so, would say that it’s important to play the first one before the second one comes out?

Kyle

I think you missed my point. I would totally recommend playing the first one. But would not criticize a review of a game based on its previous title. Have you never played a game only to have its sequel be total crap? Would you still say the sequel is good because you liked the first one? Chris reviewed the game as a single product, not the entire line if them. Its like saying you need to drive 5 BMWs to enjoy the 6th one you get.

Phil246

I’m sorry but your BMW analogy just isn’t relevant here, as we are talking about a piece of entertainment, with characters, story arcs etc. Do you think it’s fair that a critic reviews one episode of season 4 of Breaking Bad and then concludes that the story is “meh”? Have you played this game, or any of the Uncharted games for that matter?

I had no issues understanding the story or who the characters were, it’s designed purposefully in a way that doesn’t require knowledge of previous games.

You can disagree with my opinion, but it doesn’t make it invalid.

Phil246

How would you know if you haven’t played the others? The part of the story that you had a problem with was a perfect throwback to the first game. I’m sorry but makes no sense why you reviewed this game, and 16 days late also.

I don’t know what you’re referring to, but the issues I had with the story were its internally inconsistent with what its trying to do, and in the middle nothing really happens except moving to various places the treasure isn’t.

Its fine that you disagree with me, honestly.I’m not saying you’re wrong and I’m right, its subjective.

I explain in the review why I don’t like the story, people can decide for themselves whether or not its in line with what they would hope to get out of the game.

I’m glad you enjoyed it honestly, I did too. 80 is a good score, I liked the game I just thought it had some issues.

Phil246

I’m referring to chapter 17, or where did you have issues with the story? Also, where exactly has the story taken you somewhere the treasure isn’t?

It felt like the whole middle of the game was going to various gorgeous locations in search of treasure, only to find an empty room and another clue.

I liked the bits of history along the way, but it really did feel like just an excuse to move from one pretty location to another. I thought the game’s narrative started strong, but dragged quite a bit in the middle. As I said in the review it was enough to keep me interested, but for a game with a very linear, narrative approach I felt they could have put more effort into it aside from “looks like Avery has duped us again!” and “Rafe is still following us”.

Apparently some didn’t like the end, I did though, for the most part. The metaphor with the pirates’ fate was little heavy-handed but I enjoyed the invented history aspects of the game.

Alec Samuel

When a game is trying to be linear for the narrative’s sake, it is forgiven. Heck I even like it. I get your point, but games like this it helps to be linear.

I get what you’re saying, but it really hinders the exploration feel of the game. They could have built the maps so that there’s a couple of ways through each area, and with less hand-holding. Would have captured the “explorer” feel a lot better than just looking for the right pattern on the wall or the right icon to appear on screen.

The Tomb Raider reboot was pretty narrative heavy, and it didn’t feel nearly as boxed in as this.

Alec Samuel

Having some time to think about it, you have a point. If the game’s maps had more to explore it would compliment the adventure theme. But this game is for the casual gamer. ND made it to try make as many people has happy as possible. I don’t know if you read the news about how some of the creators weren’t so keen in doing this 4th one because they couldn’t experiment with this as much as a new game like The Last of Us. It sold extremely well, and that is all that matters now or days. I only played the 3 games this year and the 4th this month. They’ve milked this game long enough and they know it.

I’m glad they’re giving it a decent burial rather than hammering the IP into a lifeless pulp.

I see what you mean about the casual gamer aspect, that came through pretty strongly. Felt like it was trying to make me feel cool without really having to do much.

I think they could have toed the line a little better to satisfy both camps though. The Hint options they included were nice, and that should have been the only hints available – that way you actually have a choice for if you want everything to be solved for you 🙁

Hints could have applied to the exploration aspects as well – let players find their own way or tell them where to go if they wish.

There’s a lot, honestly, that they could have done and didn’t. And it felt more like laziness than an intentional “this is the best we can do” decision. Keen to see what ND do next.

Alec Samuel

Ah yes I agree about the hints, we want the challenge and the part to be satisfying once completed. We being the avid gamers we are (just presuming here obviously) However If you look at it from the perspective of wanting the game to feel real consider this; If in reality you were living Nathan’s adventurous life, and your friends happen to join you. Are you telling me they won’t give you aid on how to tackle a puzzle of sorts? Will they just stand there waiting for you to figure it out? Sure you could say the hint button is like them then giving you aid but that is a bit unnatural of a human to do that.

Yeaaaah it’s also unnatural to take on 50 trained mercenaries and win or come back to life every time you fall off a cliff, haha.

There’s a certain amount of suspension of disbelief when it comes to games, I think useless partners aren’t too much of a stretch – especially since in pretty much every game I’ve played the NPCs don’t really offer help until you figure out what it is you’re supposed to do.

I’m all down for building an authentic feeling adventure, but I don’t think it can come at the cost of gameplay.

Alec Samuel

Haha that is unnatural. You’re right. But taking that out would definitely make the gameplay suffer. Hence why they don’t make every part of the game lifelike, as I’m sure you know.

I just saw what the creators were doing, and they nailed it. It did come at the cost of exploration, I know.

BTW: I agree with basically everything you said, but playing Devil’s Advocate is fun.

I think it stuck out to me because I’m really not a “hardcore” gamer – I’m down for the relaxed feel. But those damn assholes telling me what to do every ten seconds had me wanting to punch the TV lol.

Alec Samuel

Haha yea there was a few times when I was like “No sh*t.”

Also I like that you never played the other games, which means no bias. That’s why it was so honest.

But that also means the throw back to the other games were gibberish to you. Hence enjoyment levels down, unlike others who loved it :p

I never felt like I was particularly hindered by not playing the others, but I suppose the callbacks just went over my head 😉

Lauren Hayward

I lately been spending a lot of time aorund a ps3 and am finally trying out the last gen exclusives. So, I started with Uncharted 2 because it’s apparently such a great game. Well, I can’t really say I’m enjoying myself. I think the game is beautiful and the characters are okay, it’s all a bit American for me and the difficulty incline seemed to be “ad more guys, with more armor and less ammo for you.”

If that was “the best” in the series, I’ve decided that it’s either just not my thing or it really is nostalgia.

I’m keen to give the others a shot since I enjoyed 4. I think your points apply to 4 as well though, so not sure you’d enjoy it too much.

Hans

I am struggling to get hooked on this game. It is almost as if I cannot take it seriously. Lame jokes, giggles all the time, then kill 10 people and giggle again. It is almost as if they tried to hard. Excellent graphics and voice acting etc. Something just doesn’t feel right. Maybe I am too old for this game.

I shouldn’t have to watch Jurassic Park to know that Jurassic Park III is a pretty underwhelming way to spend an hour and a half. Just like I shouldn’t have to sift through six Star Wars movies to decide whether or not I enjoyed watching the seventh, especially since it’s the start of a new, self-contained trilogy. On the flip side, I’d not recommend someone watch Empire before watching A New Hope, but that’s a different thing altogether.

There’s nothing wrong with a fresh perspective. I specifically gave the game to Chris because his perspective is clean, and I thought that’d make for a review that’s slightly different to all the others out there written by long-time fans. Uncharted is not episodic. There’s no reason a fresh pair of eyes shouldn’t be able to enjoy the game as much as a seasoned veteran. Sure, you’ll undoubtedly have more of an emotional attachment to the series if you’ve played it before, but I don’t see why it’s seemingly forbidden for each game in the franchise to be weighed by its own merits and failings.

LazyDemoni

Remember all those Episode VII trailer, reaction videos? They existed because fans who were invested in the series connected with it, because of the context they had. You could start with Episode VII but it wouldn’t make sense.

I get that this Star Wars comparison isn’t fair because it is a decades old franchise, but much of the hype surrounding UC4 is because it is a new entry into an established series. I don’t think a newcomer could actually enjoy the game as much as a fan. I’m also going to make another assumption and say that most people playing UC4, would have also have played the other games. There’s nothing wrong with him reviewing it – I just think it’s odd.

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